Let me ask a simple question to the pseudoliberals who take a soft line on the veil and the burqa. What about the Ku Klux Klan? Notorious for its hooded style and its reactionary history, this gang is and always was dedicated to upholding Protestant and Anglo-Saxon purity. I do not deny the right of the KKK to take this faith-based view, which is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I might even go so far as to say that, at a rally protected by police, they could lawfully hide their nasty faces. But I am not going to have a hooded man or woman teach my children, or push their way into the bank ahead of me, or drive my taxi or bus, and there will never be a law that says I have to. —“In Your Face,” Christopher Hitchens, Slate
Your iPod sucks (what? I can’t hear you);
the pros and cons of a 3-d Playboy centerfold do not include hobbies, interests or career goals;
the legendary organist, gone but not forgotten;
temperamental squirrel home invasion!
The concept of its own conformity with international legal principles being exposed to outside judgment is entirely alien to the US. When, for instance, Jordan refused to endorse the exemption of Americans from trial in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, the US immediately threatened to withdraw its contribution of one-fifth of Jordan’s annual budget. The Jordanian parliament promptly revoked its decision. More than half a century after the nation-states of the world committed themselves to a significant chain of treaty obligations intended to permit external scrutiny of their internal compliance with those treaties, America continues to maintain a remarkable isolationism. It opts out, not of the treaties, but of the provisions that allow inspection and sanction – the teeth of enforcement. —“America’s Non-Compliance,” Gareth Peirce, London Review of Books
Aging Italian sex-pot condemns female contraception;
left wing judicial despair–Tom Harkin: “Why do the conservatives always get the conservatives, but we don’t get to get the liberals?”
Goldman Sachs–the “niggling technicality”
The cover of the 1987 album N.W.A and the Posse does not look like something released by one of the most important rap groups of all time…Who would believe that some of the guys in this alleyway would change the course of popular music forever less than a year after the flashbulb popped? Who would guess these men were capable of creating their own genre of music, putting their fingerprints on nearly every hip-hop song written in the past 20 years? In fact, this picture is a perfect snapshot of one of the most important scenes in the history of popular music. Stare for a moment and you can see a myth about to be born. That myth, gangsta rap, enabled four guys in this picture — Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and Eazy-E — to titillate and terrify America as Compton-based rap group Niggaz With Attitude. The mythical power of N.W.A certainly doesn’t come from the clock necklaces, the running pants or the Jheri curls. Look to the left, at the bottles of malt liquor, the plain jeans and the black ball caps. Those props (and that’s the right word) hint at what’s going on here, which is the gestation of gangsta rap. —“Whatever Happened to N.W.A’s Posse?” Martin Cizmar, LA Weekly
Children break everything, including you;
that friendship bracelet will cost you my little friend, more than you know;
turning Coney Island’s guts into the furniture of America’s failed empire, on the cheap
The Good, the Bad, The Renault commercial by Sergio Leone with Ennio Morricone soundtrack
